Cantor's Swift Rise in GOP Ends in Stunning Fall

House Majority Leader's Loss Sets Up Battle Between Tea-Party Upstarts, Establishment to Replace Him

By

Patrick O'Connor

Updated June 11, 2014 9:24 a.m. ET

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's once-meteoric rise came to an abrupt end Tuesday when the Virginia Republican lost in a shocking defeat that breathes new life into the same conservative lawmakers he had spent much of the past year trying to tame.

The defeat of Mr. Cantor, the first-ever majority leader to lose in a primary, is all the more shocking because the 51-year-old who was widely expected to be the next speaker of the...